The year was 1957 and crime rocked the headlines.

Elvis Presley swiveled prison stripes inJailhouse Rock.

The Barbershop Quintet took too much off the top of ganglands Lord High Executioner Albert Anastasia.

The body of the 3-to-6-year-old Boy in the Box was found in Philadelphia.

But they were all eclipsed by Weird Ed, a quiet, unassuming man from Wisconsin farm country.

Ed said he couldnt even remember how many people he actually killed.

Geiners jokes replaced dead baby jokes in Wisconsin within weeks of the arrest.

But it was a pulp novel from horror writer Robert Bloch that truly caught Hollywoods attention.

Watch Psycho on Amazon

Psychonovelist Bloch lived about 35 miles away from Plainfield when Gein was arrested.

Eds mother was Augusta Crafter.

By all accounts Ma Gein wasnt too far off from Norman Bates mom.

He started dating a divorced, single mother of two and was thinking of shacking up with her.

Ed saw the relationship as his brothers rebellion against their mother and shut him out.

The Geins didnt have to farm their land because of federal agriculture subsidies.

They were burning marsh vegetation when the fire got out of control and the fire department was called in.

It looked like he had been dead for a while.

His body had not been burned in the fire.

Other reports say Ed led the police right to the body.

The police didnt suspect foul play.

There was no official investigation.

No autopsy was performed.

The county coroner officially labeled asphyxiation as the cause of Henrys death.

Geins mother Augusta had her debilitating stroke shortly after Henry died.

Gein said his mother saw a woman come out of the house and yell at Smith to stop.

Augusta died shortly after suffering a second stroke.

Schechter wrote that Ed lost his only friend and one true love.

And he was absolutely alone in the world.

Ed was a 39-year-old bachelor who never dated women and never left home.

He kept his moms bedroom exactly as it was when she was alive.

Ed got hooked on porn and pulp horror novels and became fascinated by Nazi atrocities and medical experiments.

He read medical encyclopedias and books on anatomy.

He was especially interested in female anatomy.

He started grave-robbing cemeteries in Wisconsin, digging up recently buried female corpses.

Gein later admitted that he brought home the bodies of women he thought resembled his mother.

He tanned the bodies skin and experimented with human taxidermy.

Gein started hunting less fragrant, living victims in 1954.

Mary Hogan, 54, disappeared from the tavern she ran in December 1954.

Bernice Worden, 58, who ran the towns hardware store, disappeared on November 16, 1957.

Gein was a sloppier killer than he was a grave robber and left a sales receipt on the counter.

Wardens son, Frank was a deputy.

He ordered investigators to search the Gein Farm.

A House of Horrors

Nothing could prepare the police for what they found at the Gein residence.

It was truly a house of horror.

His refrigerator was stocked with frozen human organs.

There was a human heart in a pan on the stove.

The police found a box filled solely with human noses.

They found a collection of dried, female genitalia in a shoe box under a bed.

Nine womens faces had been stuffed and mounted on one wall.

The police found Mary Hogans head in a paper bag.

Police found Bernice Wordens body hanging from the rafters in a shed behind Geins house.

It had been gutted like the carcass of hunted animal.

Her head had been removed.

It was discovered in a bloody burlap sack at about 4:30 in the morning.

Twine had been nailed into the sides of the skull.

Gein said he was planning on hanging it on his wall as a decoration.

Gein had apparently kept himself busy since his mothers death.

He was an inventive craftsman whose works would probably have their own shelf at Hot Topic now.

Ed upholstered chairs with human skin.

He made soup bowls from the sawed-off tops of human skulls.

He made a bracelet out of skin and a belt out of female nipples.

The other cops had to pull him off Gein.

The police also didnt have a warrant when they initially searched Geins place.

The confession was ruled inadmissible.

Schley died of a heart attack before Gein came to trial.

Gein claimed he was in a daze when he went to the cemeteries.

When the cops dug up two of the graves Gein directed them to, they were empty.

Gein pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity On November 21, 1957, in Waushara County Court.

He was found mentally incompetent and declared unfit for trial.

He was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

The trial for the killing of Bernice Worden started on November 7, 1968.

It lasted one week.

A psychiatrist testified that Gein didnt know whether Wordens death was intentional or accidental.

Judge Robert H. Gollmar found Gein guilty of first-degree murder on November 14.

At the second trial, Gollmar ruled Gein not guilty by reason of insanity.

Gein also admitted to killing Mary Hogan.

The state never bothered to try Gein for the murder of Mary Hogan.

Gein was first sent to Central State Hospital.

He was transferred to the Mendota Mental Health Institute in 1978.

While Gein was in detention, his house was burned to the ground in a suspected arson.

Carnival sideshow operator Bunny Gibbons from Rockford, Illinois, paid $760 for the Ed Gein Ghoul Car.

A news report at the time said Ed participated in an insane transvestite ritual.

The shirt had a full set of breasts.

Gein later confessed that he wore shirt at night and pretended to be his mother.

It came out later that Gein decided he wanted a sex change after his mothers death.

Horror movies usually add blood, gore, a rising suspense and a few pop-up scares.

Alfred Hitchcock didnt avail himself to the cinematic arsenal when he madePsychowith Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh.

The master filmmaker relied on the suspense of intricate camera work and a titillating shower scene that redefined editing.

Demme had no problem using everything on the police evidence list.

What happened is true!

Now the movie thats just as real, promised the lobby cards for Hoopers 1974 indie classic.

Gein never actually used a chainsaw, but who cares?

Leatherface and his family embodied a fear that had been bubbling in the national consciousness for years.

Hooper lovingly assembled a horrific backwoods shack out of the splinters of Americas fractured psyche.

Every room was a nightmare.

Even the blades of grass outside the house looked sharp as pirates cutlasses.

Gein died of lung cancer on July 26, 1984, at the age of 77.

He was buried in the Plainfield Cemetery, the old haunts he used to grave rob.